Abstract
Abstract The paper suggests that casting the choice problem in terms of alternative time-consuming activities can foster the fruitful cross-fertilization between economics and psychology along the lines suggested by Scitovsky in the Joyless Economy. The first part emphasizes how mainstream, utility-based choice theory has eradicated “time” from the analysis, in contrast with the seminal contribution to the subjective theory of value proposed by Gossen in 1858. The limits of Becker’s well-known approach to time-use are also analyzed. The second part opens with the presentation of an alternative approach based on activities, intended as productive processes allowing for pleasant time to be produced by consuming “direct” unpleasant time plus the “indirect” amount of unpleasant time equivalent to the market goods used up as inputs (Nisticò, Production of (Pleasant) Time by Means of (Unpleasant) Time: Some Notes on Consumption Theory and Time Use, 2014). Finally, the approach is applied to an intertemporal context by drawing on Hicks’s temporary equilibrium method. Scitovsky’s distinction between defensive and creative activities is discussed in conclusion, suggesting that individuals might refrain from engaging in more skilled, time-consuming activities because of the attractiveness of a certain, higher present-period rate of return of less skilled, goodsintensive activities.
Highlights
The timeless model of choice suggested by standard consumption theory takes it for granted that individuals focus their attention on the ‘utility’ of the available goods and services that are seen as the direct source of their satisfaction
Hick’s method is founded on the idea that economics should accommodate the role of time by framing the analysis in terms of a sequence of temporary equilibria characterized both by the individuals’ attempts to optimize their ‘weekly’ plan and by the recognition that each new weekly plan is built on the possible shortcomings of the previous one, in a dynamic sequence that hardly converges towards any intertemporal equilibrium path: “Even when we have mastered the “working” of the temporary equilibrium system, we are even yet not in a position to ... examine the ulterior consequences of changes in the data
I explored whether a fruitful approach to choice theory can be pursued by building upon Gossen’s ‘submerged and forgotten’ assumption that the enjoyment of pleasant time is the ultimate goal of individual economic choices
Summary
The timeless model of choice suggested by standard consumption theory takes it for granted that individuals focus their attention on the ‘utility’ of the available goods and services that are seen as the direct source of their satisfaction. It is man's wants in the earliest stages of his development that give rise to his activities, yet afterwards each new step upwards is to be regarded as the development of new activities giving rise to new wants, rather than of new wants giving rise to new activities” (Marshall 1920: 88–89) Notwithstanding his acute emphasis on time-consuming activities as the source of human satisfaction, Marshall completely lost sight of the need to approach the individual’s choice problem taking into account that consumption takes time, and his timeless approach—with ‘marginal utility’ being considered as one and the same thing as the ‘instantaneous’ desire for the objects of exchange and total utility as a function of the stock of goods and services the individual is endowed with—became the standard treatment of consumption:.
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